Stanley Tucci (Easy A) is currently shopping around a project based on the life of Ed Lucas, a sports journalist who was blinded by an wayward baseball at the age of twelve. Lucas has covered the Yankees and New York Mets for over fifty years, starting in 1964.

Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel (Fever Pitch) penned the script, said to be a “biopic with inspirational undertones.” The project has yet to land a studio home, but if/when it does, 24 Frames notes that Tucci will direct and perhaps assume the lead role.

Since 1964, Ed Lucas has worked as a reporter/broadcaster, covering the New York area sports scene, despite being totally blind, as he has been for the last 55 years.

Ed’s success in this competitive field while overcoming a disability has led to many opportunities to speak to crowds both large and small on motivational matters relating to facing life’s challenges.

On October 3, 1951, Ed was at home in Jersey City watching a baseball playoff game between the Brooklyn Dodgers and his beloved New York Giants. In the ninth inning, Bobby Thomson of the Giants stepped to the plate and hit the game winning home run off of Dodgers pitcher Ralph Branca, in what would become one of the most famous moments in American sports history, known as “The Shot Heard Round the World.” When the dramatic game on TV concluded, Ed went outside to play sandlot ball. A few minutes into the game, he was struck between the eyes by a wicked line drive and lost his vision. It never returned.

In 1958, just seven years after losing his sight, Ed enrolled at Seton Hall University, graduating four years later with a degree in communications (one of the first blind students in the country to do so.) With his baseball connections, Ed was able to land coveted print and broadcast jobs covering the major league teams in New York City.

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